Re: Story Fodder

David Goldfarb <goldfarb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <1i9un8p.nb3i1f1qny26uN%spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jonathan L Cunningham <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
in my Nano Novel the "new goddess" was a goddess of Truth. And she was a
"new" goddess because she represented a new archetype: the truthful
person.

And the inspiration for that is that, as far as I have been able to
determine, none of the familiar pantheons (Greek, Norse, Ancient
Egyptian, Celtic, Hindu) have a patron deity of Truth. Which, if true,
is an interesting comment on historical and pre-historical attitudes to
truth telling.

There was a story arc in the _Wonder Woman_ comic in which the title
character became the Goddess of Truth. (Her mother filled in for her
on earth.)

There are many gods/goddesses of wisdom, skill or justice - but part of
the craftiness even of a god of wisdom tends to be in deception.

Having recently read the Odyssey, I certainly agree with that touching
Athena. To take just one example, when Odysseus returns home to Ithaca,
she cloaks the island in mist so that he doesn't at first recognize it;
and then she comes to him in the form of a shepherd boy. She reveals
the truth about the island and her own identity quite quickly, so the
initial deception doesn't seem to serve any purpose beyond pure joy
in trickery. And Odysseus himself is quite skilled in trickery, and
it seems clear that this similarity between them is the reason that
he's a favorite of hers.

Yes. I didn't remember that specific example, but the Odyssey was one of
the things I was thinking of.

Another, from the Havamal (translation by Bjorn Jonasson):
You have a friend
you hardly trust
in whom you cannot confide,
with fair smiles
and false words
repay cunning in kind.

I find it quite hard to get my head around a culture in which you are
advised to lie to your friends!

Even the concept of "true" and "truth" seems problematic (which is hard
to grasp for someone of my educational background). According to the
dictionary, the etymology of the English word comes from "loyalty". The
ancient Greek when Aristotle was inventing the concept comes from a word
meaning "not hidden". The idea of *true* (v. *false*) seems to have been
a difficult concept to invent/discover.

Hmmm. It's something I would really like to explore and make more
explicit in some of my writing. How do two people argue, if they do not
have a word for "true" or the possibility that either of them can be
"wrong" in some absolute sense? Much like they do now, I suppose ...

Jonathan
.

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